Scoreboard on every street: Gas heads for $4 per gallon due to Iran war

https://www.axios.com/2026/03/19/gas-prices-iran-war-4-dollars-gallon

Scoreboard on every street: Gas heads for $4 per gallon due to Iran war

• Dave Lawler

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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

Most Americans will likely soon be paying over $4 per gallon as the war in Iran drives one of the sharpest gas price surges in recent history.

The big picture: For many Americans, the most visible barometer of how the Iran war is going may be the price at the gas station down the street.

Breaking it down: The White House insists prices will fall rapidly once Trump's military objectives in Iran are achieved.

• "President Trump has been clear that these are short-term disruptions. Ultimately, once the Iranian regime is neutralized, oil and gas prices will drop rapidly again, potentially even lower than before the strikes" began, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement.
• But analysts say it could take weeks to months for prices to ease, even after the war begins to wind down. That could keep gas prices elevated into the summer.
• Trump has largely dismissed the price spikes, though Vice President Vance acknowledged on Wednesday that there could be a "rough road ahead of us for the next few weeks."
• If the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed for an extended period of time, or if Iran conducts further retaliatory strikes on Gulf energy facilities, the costs could be steeper and longer-lasting.

Between the lines: The White House says Trump wants to decimate Iran's navy, proxy funding and nuclear and missile programs before moving to end the war.

• It may be difficult to convince swing voters it's worth swallowing budget-busting price increases to achieve those goals.
• Iran currently has a stranglehold on the most important waterway for the global oil trade, complicating any attempt by Trump to end the conflict and get prices back to normal.
• In the meantime, he is taking a variety of steps, like tapping strategic reserves and suspending the Jones Act, to try to limit the pain.

Reality check: Prices were relatively low — below $3 on average — when the war began, so they're still below historic highs despite a more than 25% increase since the war began.

• Prices spiked to around $5 per gallon at the start of the war in Ukraine, for example.
• But gas prices are one of the most visible and keenly felt forms of inflation, and have a disproportionate impact on lower-income households.

By the numbers: Majorities of Americans think gas prices are already too high (80%), that they're likely to increase in the next few months (67%), and that Trump is to blame for the increases (60%), according to a Yahoo/YouGov poll.

• Meanwhile, 56% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of Iran, vs. 36% who approve, according to a separate Economist/YouGov poll.
• The vast majority of Republicans continue to support the war, though, and Trump's overall approval rating appears stable.
• Republicans up for election in November are hoping the price surge is over and forgotten by then.

The bottom line: Rising gas prices could make it harder for President Trump to convince Americans it's a fight worth having.

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What to read next

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  Mar 10, 2026

  Gas price spikes are slamming Senate battleground states

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  Mar 9, 2026

  Oil tops $100 per barrel as Iran war escalates

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  Mar 12, 2026

  48% of Americans blame Trump for high gas prices — more than any other factor

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  Mar 9, 2026

  The Iran war's economic blowback is getting real

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  Mar 4, 2026

  The products and services likely to surge in price due to the Iran war

 

 

 

Epstein's accountant links settlement payment to Trump accuser by Epstein estate, + Big Names named

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/12/2372868/-Epstein-s-accountant-links-settlement-payment-to-Trump-accuser-by-Epstein-estate-Big-Names-named?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

Epstein's accountant links settlement payment to Trump accuser by Epstein estate, + Big Names named

by xaxnar

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 3:12:58p EDT

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The late Jeffrey Epstein - so conveniently dead...

Dean Blundell has looked at testimony by Epstein’s personal accountant Richard Kahn before the House Oversight Committee yesterday, and has found it… interesting.

March 12, 2026

Jeffrey Epstein’s personal accountant sat before the House Oversight Committee for seven hours yesterday, and by the end of it, the levy had broken.

Richard Kahn — the man who managed every dollar Epstein moved for over a decade, who was named in Epstein’s will two days before his mysterious death, and who appears more than 50,000 times in the DOJ’s Epstein files — confirmed under congressional questioning that a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexual abuse received a settlement payment from Epstein’s estate.

Epstein’s estate.

Trump’s accuser.

A cheque that matches up perfectly with the infamous 53 missing pages and hundreds of thousands of redactions referencing Donald J Trump in abuse accounts so sick, I had a hard time detailing them here:

But wait — there’s more:

Kahn didn’t stop there. He confirmed the names of five “rich and powerful” parties who bankrolled Epstein’s operation:

Les Wexner. Glenn Dubin. Steven Sinofsky. The Rothschilds. Leon Black.

These are the people who transferred significant sums of money to Jeffrey Epstein — a convicted sex trafficker and predator of underage girls. Kahn’s explanation? He thought Epstein was a tax advisor and financial planner. He thought the money was consulting fees.

Nobody believes that. Not one person on that committee. Not one person reading this.

Blundell goes on to describe each of the five and their history with Epstein. It is not hard to look at the information and suspect there’s multiple reasons the Trump regime is fighting so hard to keep the Epstein files under wraps and control what gets released. 

And then there’s this:

Kahn wasn’t just Epstein’s number cruncher. He ran Epstein’s financial infrastructure through his company, HBRK Associates Inc. He coordinated wire transfers. He signed cheques. He managed what the DOJ files describe as medical reimbursements for “the girls.” He vouched for Epstein when banks flagged tuition payments to young women. He impersonated Epstein in communications with banks, which he admitted to Congress yesterday. He helped facilitate a fake marriage between two women connected to Epstein, which he also admitted yesterday.

And then he showed up to Congress and said he had no idea anything was wrong.

What’s also interesting is how the testimony by Kahn is being headlined in regular media outlets. What’s the important thing that should lead off the reporting? Here’s a sampling:

FOX: Epstein accountant testifies he never saw 'any type of transaction' with Trump, Comer says

KBAX-KBFX: Epstein's accountant confirms no payments made to or from Trump

MSN: Epstein payout tied to Trump accuser revealed

Newsweek: Epstein Estate Paid Trump Settlement to Abuse Accuser: Accountant

CBS: Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant, tells Congress he didn't know about abuse, saw no red flags in spending

ABC: Epstein's accountant says he didn't see any 'red flags' for abuse, trafficking

I’d be inclined to believe Trump decided to attack Iran as a distraction from the Epstein files, but at this point I wonder if he really needed to? There should have already been sufficient evidence to have brought Trump down by now. Certainly any Democratic president would already have been driven from office with accusations like the ones that have already surfaced. 

And so it goes.